Hallim & Ongpo

These locations have appeared in numerous poems & i have written a great many of my poems whilst out walking or riding around these places. They are not the prettiest places & i sometimes wonder what it is about them that appeals to me. i think it is their ruggedness. There is a sense of desolation, that they have been forgotten & left to the weather. & yet, they are so noisy with shape & shade, with dilapidation & trash, with motion & sound— forlorn, yet impressive. Real, unpretentious aesthetics that the camera laps up. This is where the tourists never come & yet they are the most vibrant areas of the island. i shouldn’t complain & i sure don’t wish for tourists to discover these places.

abandonment issues

catch

funny what you think you don’t need

open door policy

purple mood

scrub

vinyl house

crane

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After living in Korea for shy a decade, I find myself back in England, penalized for my turned back, awaiting a move to Exeter, where I will study an MA in English, with focus on environmental studies. These days I am reading inveterately, owing to my no longer living without the means to buy books & books & books. My reading interest lie in contemporary philosophy, ecology, ecological philosophy, object orientated ontology & speculative realism. These ideas are leaching into my poetry & essays.

“noisy with shape & shade” – yes, I see what you mean, particularly with ‘abandonment issues’. Interesting places you take us with your camera! Small windows in an abandoned building always make for a spookier feel. What (or who) is hiding in there?

Shape & shade is what i use mostly because i don’t have the confidence to approach people but that has helped me develop an interest in the environment.
I hope no one is in those windows. That’d be terrifying. Haha.

It can be remote. Quite a few of these places there are few people. & some of the roads like where the vinyl house is are seldom populated but by the odd farmer’s truck.
I didn’t go in. I recall it being locked up. Lots of abandoned places. Near my house there is a hotel that never got very far past being concreted. Been years now. Silly i haven’t been there yet. But i will get to it.

In England, an area of land that cleared an infestation of Japanese Knotweed, will usually have a plaque celebrating it as an accomplishment, a very formal plaque too. It can bring down the buildings if it wends its way into the foundations.

Depends how creative you are in desperate situations, i am sure van Damme would put it to good use, hooking it round a guys wrist & jerking it skillfully to force him into pummeling his own face black n’ blue before coiling it round his neck & wincing him over his back & launching him into a wall.

Desolate, indeed. I find it hard to tell if these are taken in winter or summer. The bleakness indicates winter but the brightness of the colors imply summer. Good subjects. Adding people wouldn’t be a bad idea. Koreans are unique, in their stature, and especially the women’s colorful work outfits. This, of course, is based entirely on what I observe from Kdramas. Not an expert. I imagine their faces to be weathered and interesting.

They were taken this autumn. Autumn in Jeju, & Korea, is a very bright season. It is still pretty tepid in Jeju during autumn & it lasts till about early December, that is when the temperature begins to dip.
i’ll add people if i can catch them. The thing is, the old people don’t have the patience to be photographed & most Koreans don’t really like it, which is ironic, because they are habitual selfie takers. It sort of proves the narcissism of selfies: people want to be in control of how they look. The Jeju people have weathered faces & therein lies the problem, the women are still women, they can be just as shy about their image. My friend got access to the woman divers, the haenyo, & that day they dived in make-up. They’d dolled themselves up knowing they’d be photographed. They hate it when tourists wait for them to come ashore, because their faces are red & blotchy from the cold water. Photographing is just an aside for me, i don’t want to go around embarrassing or making islanders uncomfortable. i can write people into poems, i don’t need to photograph them too.
i like bleak photos as it challenges the myth of how we define paradise. Jeju is often referred to as a paradise island, but that’s because tourists (even though most of them are Korean) don’t see the everyday living spaces of Jeju, they just drive from one tourist hotspot to another.

Like most islands. Paradise only to the rich. The make-up is mandatory. My wife won’t leave the house without grooming, though she uses very little cosmetics. It’s an issue of personal pride. Jeju must be a great place to be situated.

Big fan of abandoned (and almost abandoned) places! I could wonder around for days taking pictures of the random stuff lying around 🙂

crane and catch (and the cover pic) are my favs from this set, nicely vibrant colours and juxtaposed scenes. I keep wanting to zoom into those to get a tighter crop, although that’s just me liking more geometry and abstractness in general.

Cheers for the encouraging observations. Means a lot coming from such a talented photographer.
i do feel like i am more able to manipulate mood, not only while i am out with the camera, but also during the editing stage. i’d like to see what i could accomplish if i had a more comprehensive editing tool, but i am not willing to fork out the money for Photoshop, being as amateur as i am. i am content to push the boundaries of my limitations right now. So any encouragement is welcome.
i have since you recommended cropping in a previous comment, played with cropping, but, i am trying to widen the frame & capture more as i have done quite a bit of detailed stuff at close range & think i need to work on landscape composition a little more. In the week i’ll be putting up some of these zoomed out photos.

Excellent, looking forward to them.
May I recommend the Nik collection from Google (www.google.com/nikcollection/) it’s free and very powerful. And probably slightly more user friendly than photoshop.
And Merry Christmas to you of course 🙂

“ There, I am desperately free and naive; but knowing this oh dear happiness, dear misery; there is no distinctive sign except that one tearing one’s heart, and a smile destined to nobody(...)" E.Stachura